320 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is very slowly oxygenized." The woman who cleans the 

 house and washes the clothing understands the filthy nature 

 of the exhalation. 



Its presence in any considerable quantity is readily detected 

 by the sense of smell whenever we enter, from the open air, 

 occupied halls, school-rooms, shops, living-rooms, sleeping- 

 rooms, that are not properly ventilated. Its ill effects upon 

 animal and human life have been often demonstrated by ex- 

 perience and experiment. 



Witness the oft-quoted horror of the black hole in Cal- 

 cutta, where, in a room eighteen feet square, with only two 

 small windows, a hundred and forty-six Englishmen were 

 confined at eight o'clock in the evening (at six the next 

 morning, all but twenty-three were dead) ; and the account 

 of the steamer " Londonderry," where a hundred and fifty 

 passengers were confined in a small cabin for several hours, 

 the deaths amounting to seventy; and the prison, where, after 

 the battle of Austerlitz, three hundred Austrian prisoners 

 were confined (two hundred and sixty of them died very 

 speedily). 



" In all these instances death was caused, not by excess of 

 carbonic acid, but by excess and concentration of animal 

 exhalations, and a deficiency of oxygen." 



Gavarret and Hammond have experimented repeatedly 

 with animals, removing the watery vapor and carbonic acid, 

 leaving the organic matter alone, and have conclusively 

 proved that this organic matter is highly poisonous, and may 

 be speedily fatal. 



Evidence on this point is cumulative and conclusive. The 

 records of jails, prisons, ships, hospitals, and armies, wher- 

 ever men have been confined in large numbers in close, ill- 

 ventilated quarters, always show the same results. 



Such being the effects of breathing an air thus highly 

 vitiated, it is clearly apparent that the continuous breathing 

 in our homes, of an air rendered moderately impure from 

 organic exhalations, must injuriously affect the health of 

 those subject to its influence ; and common observation and 

 experience confirms this as true. 



Such persons are troubled with headache, neuralgia, debil- 

 ity, weak digestion, faultj^ assimilation, impoverished blood, 

 impaired nutrition of nerves and muscles, and consequent loss 



